subscribe

Pages

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

I thought you guys might appreciate this e-mail I got today:

Hi Jen,

A friend of mine posted a link to your site, (and) I think I spent about 3 hours yesterday going though your blog when I was supposed to be working on lesson plans for the English class I teach. I am an American English teacher at a big elementary school not far from Seoul, SouthKorea. My Korean coworkers heard me laughing so hard that they came over to my desk to investigate. Clever as I am, I told them I was working on my next lesson, which I wasn't... until I realized that I WAS!

So today, I decided to ditch the book and instead teach grammar and spelling mistakes from Cake Wrecks. The fourth and fifth graders loved it, and the students were able to correct about 90% of the mistakes! How embarrassing that even Korean elementary school students know better!

Thanks for the great teaching material!

- Carolyn H.

The Cake Wrecks pop quiz - gotta love it.

Here the children are wondering how the U.S. ever became a world power.(The answer, of course, isWhoopie Pies.)

Carolyn, thanks for helping to spread the Wreckage on such a global scale. Why, by influencing these young minds you've made our bid for ultimate Wrecky world domination that much easier! Tell me, did you perchance introduce the kiddos to their friendly neighborhood Carrot Jockeys?

We need more teachers like that who can be creative with their lessons. I was a graphic design student and we had an instructor who would bring in printed materials that made it into the magazines and newspapers with obvious mistakes on it. Like the one that said "We fix clocks!" But they left a very important letter out of the word "clock".

I wish I were still teaching! You could do one-a-day Cake Wrecks grammar problems. I see a new book in your future, Jen. Bored English students everywhere will thank you while doodling carrot jockeys on their papers.

As another American teacher working near Seoul, Korea, I think this is a great idea! I wish my kindergarteners knew English well enough to do this! I may suggest it to some of my other co-workers who have older students :D

Wow! Great save with the coworkers. I wish that I'd had something like that to say when I first found this blog (at work) and laughed uncontrollable out loud at my desk. But unfortunately, I haven't come up with a way to utilize the material yet as a marketing manager... in time. It's my favorite blog! Thanks!

I am so going to steal this lesson plan. I teach introductory composition at the college level (sometimes remedial sections) and you'd be shocked at the lack of grammar and spelling skills. Just found the site yesterday - it's so fun!

I hope they don't think all Americans are such poor spellers. I believe the people who misspell are foreigners whose first language isn't English. What English speaking person would slaughter such easy phrases?

that's too funny. my s-i-l told me about the site yesterday and i spent hours and hours going through it too (and then re-through w/ the hubs). it is a blast and i must say- my s-i-l rocks for telling me about your site. and you rock for having it!!! thanks for the great laughs!

i am a VERY beginner in the cake world. but have grown up with a mother who does cakes. because of MY new found love of decorating- all of this takes on a whole different meaning! keep up the great work!!!

Currently in South Korea and I think this is a wonderful lesson plan as well. None of the cakes I've seen here ever have writing but some are wrecks anyway. Most are quite lovely to look at but you wouldn't want to eat them.

I am also a teacher and just a few weeks ago, I began showing my 6th grade students the Creative Grammar and Mithspellings cakes after we did our grammar warmups. They LOVED THEM! Every day, they'd come in and ask, "Do you have a new cake to show us?" At the end of the year, I made a cakewreck for each class that said, "Kongradulashuns Frist Peroid!" and the other "6st Peroid." It was a hit. Thanks for the material.

Back when we started it all (the U.S.), spelling wasn't necessarily standardized - at least not like it is supposed to be today. I would like to think that we became a world power around the time we started to standardize our own spelling and differentiate ourselves from English from "over the pond". But I don't want to know what that says about our prospects for today... ::shakes head::

I'd never heard of Whoopie Pies, they don't have them here in Australia, so I guess your world domination is not yet complete :D We do, however, know all about Whoopie Cushions. I originally thought that a Whoopie Pie was a disturbing sort of follow-on.

This is funny because I do the same thing with my tenth grade English students and half the time, they CAN'T find the errors! I put cake wrecks up on my SMARTboard every few days, when there are grammar/spelling errors. The kids think you are as funny as I do! Keep the errors comming; I am saving them up over the summer!Amber

This was a great idea and I'm soooo stealing it! I start teaching advanced English comp for ESL students in the fall, and I've been looking for a nice, light-hearted intro lesson so I don't panic on my first day in the college classroom. Thanks a bunch!

Jen -- I love this! I think photos and blogs are sometimes more fun/effective teaching tools vs. just explaining the difference between "you're" and "your."

There's a bad grammar blog (forgetting the name, I am) with nothing but photos of bad grammar (ex: "Franks Tire's) that I used in my business writing class, and it was lovely -- they got it with the photos.

The classroom is awesome, probably because it's not a public school...it's probably a school kids go to after school that their parents pay bum loads of money to send them to. I've worked in lots of public schools here and they're not nice at all...maybe Seoul's different.

Also, if you want to see a cake wreck perhaps it's time for me to send in some photos of some Korean cakes...two words:cherry tomatoes, yeah, i said it...in Korea tomatoes really are a fruit.

I am a fond reader from Singapore and I happen to be a teacher too. I was teaching my students the proper use of punctuation marks and I used some of the pictures from your site. My children really enjoyed that lesson and many were laughing at the mistakes made.

Congrats! You have a blog with a ton of readers of varying ages (I'm 13, proof), a BOOK, and people in other countries read your blog. You're officially famous. I almost died laughing at the caption on the last pic- but it wasn't Whoopies Pies only, it was the great American Fried Twinkie too. ;)

Oh so cool! I teach middle school English and have used your site for grammar lessons too! The kids LOVE it. It makes me feel like I'm helping the world by ensuring that my students won't ever end up on your site- they'll know better! :)

Search This Blog

Wreck the Halls

NEW! Pre-Order Today!

Buy the Book

Buy the NYT Bestseller

What's a Wreck?

What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

order

Where's the book?

We don’t have any copies of Cake Wrecks for sale here, autographed or otherwise. We decided the shipping and handling costs would be too high to make it worth your while. So instead, buy your copies locally or online and then order personalized bookplates: it’s cheaper, easier, and I think even looks a bit nicer.

Ordering Info

Payments must be made through Paypal, which accepts all major credit cards. Sorry, but that means no checks or MOs or barter-based chickens.

We ship everything first class USPS, and will do our best to have your package in the mail within 2 days of your order.